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Book\X.54fi- 



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Author 



Title 



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PACIFIC UNIVERSITY. 



INAUGURAL DISCOURSE, 



BY 



SIDNEY II. MABSH. PRESIDENT. 



AN 



INAUGURAL DISCOURSE, 



BY 



SIDNEY Hf MARSH, 

K 
PRESIDENT OF PACIFIC UNIVERSITY, OREGON. 

o5V 







BURLINGTON : 

TREE PRESS OFFICE. 

1856. 



DISCOURSE. 



-^•^fr ^- 



Fellow Citizens : 

To-day, Pacific University commences its formal and public 
organization, accepts publicly and solemnly its responsibilities, 
and assumes a position from which there is no honorable retreat 
After five years of preparation, of painful and strenuous effort? 
this institution takes a step in advance ; the idea of education 
has taken a higher form of development ; the Academy has 
become the College. 

This occasion, and these exercises, therefore, in some sense 
inaugurate the Institution, and are of more importance than as 
concerning an individual, or an individual's usefulness. To 
speak, then, befittingly to the circumstances, to give utterance 
to the thoughts and feelings becoming the hour, one should bear 
all the joy for triumphs over past difficulties and for present 
prosperity, all the hopes and fears for the future, in his mind 
and upon his tongue ; joys, and fears, and hopes, great in pro 
portion to the interests of education and learning concerned. 



He must express the exultation of those who, looking back to 
the childhood and youth of Tualatin Academy, rejoice at the 
promise of its opening manhood, as public hopes give place to 
public confidence ; while, in harmony with this feeling, he should 
also express the desires and hopes of those, who, aware of the 
difficulties and dangers that beset not so much its existence as 
its usefulness, would temper ardent wishes' with prudent fears 
and cautious consideration. 

And in such a strain of uttered feeling I would choose to ad- 
dress you, gentlemen, and as rejoicing upon a festival, let the 
feelings rule the hour, and find their most appropriate expres- 
sion. 

And what better suits our feelings for the past — in what fitter 
mode can a considerate and thoughtful joy express itself, what 
will give hope a loftier confidence, what nerve for more firm 
and resolute endeavor, than a consideration of what it is, that 
this and similar Institutions are established to realize, — what 
learning and liberal culture are, and what the value of their 
attainment. Let us then, with confidence in our convictions, 
and sure of our experience of what knowledge is and does, re- 
volve before our minds, the facts that we believe, the truth we 
are acting upon, and leave to greater leisure and maturer de- 
liberation to prove the one, or verify the other. I need to 
invoke a muse but seldom called to venture thus to become 
the oracle of the occasion. I need the confidence that strong 
convictions can alone give ; and believe me, I would not ven- 
ture to give utterance to the idea, out of which this and similar 
Colleges grow as a tree from its root ; I would not attempt to 
define the character of an undertaking in which the public are 
so greatly concerned, if I believed that I were about to offer in- 



5 

dividual opinions and not demonstrable truth, — truth which the 
occasion makes appropriate, and which it is well to consider. 

On the ground of the common want, which has led men to 
seek knowledge and establish Institutions of learning, and from 
the experience of the worth of the one and the benefits of the 
other to individuals and communities, I should be willing to rest 
all proof of the importance of learning, and of the means to sup- 
port and advance it. Nor is this a feeble evidence. There is a 
sure knowledge, compared with which all logical conclusions, all 
theoretical statements are unsatisfactory and obscure. There 
are truths that we believe and act upon, that in the extent of 
their circuit can be touched only by the constantly moving 
radius of experience — experience defines by touching them — 
truths which in their entire unity and completeness we never 
comprehend, that like the circuit of the horizon are never ob- 
scure, but nevertheless cannot be all at one time seen. There 
are duties that we have found most advantageous, the reasons 
for which we do not know ; fields of action most productive, 
which we have inherited and cultivate as our Fathers did, we 
know not why our lot is cast there. There is a wisdom that we 
all have, that we cannot understand, that like a public fountain 
supplies the can of every villager, and has enough even for the 
thirsty traveller. There is a public and common stock of truth, 
that like the common all sustaining air, we gladly and unques. 
tioningly use, and never gainsay ; there are rich experiences, 
of which each individual partakes ; there are deep convictions 
of real and substantial good, which like the poet's inspiration, 
we cannot all express, nor all conceal, which are all-powerful 
with us, that control not merely momentary action, but life's 
labors, and without which all our life would be even more help- 
less and unproductive than it is. 



6 

What could we unassisted effect, were we thrown into the 
world without the guidance of those living ideas, those strong 
convictions of what is best, derived from former generations, 
from the race to which we belong, that direct our efforts and 
control our plans, — ideas and convictions, whether imbibed with 
our mothers' milk or developed by external influences, that we 
feel to be obligatory upon us — that, however originating, cer- 
tainly owe their influence to our nature, and that we should be 
unnatural not to acknowledge. Such is the truth of the worth 
of learning. An undeniable impulse has driven man to seek 
it, and there is an innate respect for it. Whatever we may 
define it to be ; whatever particular advantage we may ascer- 
tain to accrue from it ; whatever power it may exert over the 
affairs of men ; however its importance may seem to vary, and 
its mere popularity wane or increase ; we still as scholars know 
its real ^inappreciable value, that " its price is above rubies, 
and that it is to be sought for more than hid treasures" ; and 
all men still respect and desire it. And on such grounds alone, 
satisfied with it for its own sake, and willing to labor for it for 
its own reward, we would rebuke all impertinent questionings, 
whether arising from the pride of ignorance, or the malignity 
of that leveling equality-loving spirit that would bring all supe. 
riority to its own level, especially the superiority of the good. 
Surely wisdom should be justified of her children. 

For after all, the essential of true learning is wisdom. For 
the right love of knowledge originates in an innate striving, and 
earnest aspiration after excellence, — through increased know- 
ledge of the circumstances in which we are placed, and of our 
own nature and end — a striving often manifested in all man's his- 
tory. For from experience, felt within himself or observed in 
others, the scholar, the true one, knows that its importance can- 



not be measured by all the aids that science has furnished in- 
dustry ; that it is not proportioned to the pleasure that literature 
and poetry afford ; nor to be valued by the consolations of 
Philosophy. 

There is a necessity which neither profits nor pleasure can 
satisfy, and for which all art and science are inadequate. It is 
this want that true and genuine learning would seek to satisfy. 
We need, as rational and accountable beings, surrounded by the 
fogs of sinful ignorance, a light that shall dispel darkness. 
Lost like a traveller amid the tangled jungles of tropical re- 
gions, we need a guide to the mountain summits and the open 
ways. We need a knowledge of ourselves and our circum- 
stances, of men and things. We need the light that investiga- 

«Q tions into the laws of language and laws of thought may per- 
chance give us. We need to know what principles, and whence, 
have governed men in divers countries and different ages, and 
under varied circumstances ; perhaps from such a study of his- 
tory we may better know ourselves. These studies are indeed 
valuable for other ends, but chiefly because they tend to satisfy 
the craving thirst for knowledge, which our souls demand, not 
for their pleasure, or temporary happiness, but for their per- 
manent well-being. I know that there is much thought and 
intellectual activity which does not, and cannot satisfy these 

I spiritual cravings, which is a wandering of the intellect to and 
fro in the earth without any ascension above it. There is much 
acquisition that is not true knoivledge, much theorising that does 
not really increase the insight. The history of literary men is 
full of evidence of misspent power, power misspent for the 
great purposes of thought, though not unfruitful perhaps in 
inferior, temporary, and temporal good. We have painful evi- 



8 

clences of the unsatisfactoriness of thought not rightly directed 
in minds delicately organized, where the cause of need was 
perhaps obscurely felt, where the insufficiency of all their efforts 
wrung tears and groans, clothed tho' they were in the most lovely 
garb of imagination and poetry. Such spirits have felt the in- 
aptness of their own theories as an increase of their sufferings 
and want. Their own thoughts have thus returned to sting 
them, and driven like the daughter of Inachus, they have 
sought in vain during a life of flight, a Prometheus to reveal a 
future release from their sufferings. Such have been many 
among the Germans, who have spent a life in theorising, and, 
although ever unsatisfied with their own efforts, have still been 
compelled to theorise right on. Such have been many among 
the English, such, many among our own people, who like Shelly 
and Keats, most sad examples, were " pard-like spirits, beauti- 
ful and swift,'' who, " Actaeon-like fled far astray, and as they 
wandered o'er the world's wilderness, their own thoughts along 
the rugged way pursued like raging hounds their father and 
their prey." But such misdirections of power, such consequent 
uselessness of knowledge for all its higher ends, far from dis- 
proving its spiritual purpose, indicate rather the connection, 
the dependance upon, the subservience of the intellect, consid- 
ered as a faculty, to the spirit and its wants. For without some 
spiritual initiative, all thought in the higher departments has 
been ineffectual, and a life spent in theorising has produced no 
enduring results. 

The intellect as a faculty has a power of its own, and by its 
power over nature and the affinity of its laws with the Divine 
Intelligence, proves the dignity of its possessor, and teaches us 
to infer, what every man instinctively believes, that the longings, 



the instincts, and the wants of man himself, give the noblest 
the only proper employment, for each and every faculty. Yes ! 
the purest, the loftiest, the most stirring purpose, that which, 
excites every faculty most fully, is to make ourselves better, 
more divine ; — and in doing this, can we separate from us the 
power of intelligence ? or is the faculty of thought to be set 
aside to perform some unessential function, or pursue some object 
outside the soul, to be employed for some economical or second, 
ary end — to reduce nature in its varied phenomena to scien. 
tific laws — to write history to gratify our curiosity, or poetry 
to delight us ? 

There is an opinion that would sever thought from spiritual, 
ity, knowing from being, and that consequently would confine 
the intellect to certain duties of arranging and systematizing, 
or limit it to what is called practical science. An opinion, the 
offspring of modern infidelity and materialism, that, — while ig- 
noring the spiritual divine calling and destiny of man, and 
making him but little better than the brutes, — would degrade 
the intellect to its service by a few flattering words, such as 
practical utility, human comfort and happiness — words well 
enough in their way, — and the intellect, like a strong slave 
galled hy the remembrance of lost nobility and freedom, even 
under these circumstances, asserting its higher dignity, has 
astonished the world by the vastness of its Herculean labors ; 
by the glittering and gorgeous systems it has erected; by 
the extent of its scientific excursions and discoveries. But in 
all this display it has never been, in reality, half so august and 
grand, as when employed in its proper sphere, and engaged in 
subordination to, in harmony with, as constituent of, the rational 
common sense, the religious sense of the race. True learning 



10 

is far more than such intellectual activity, and the true power 
of the intellect far more than such strength of mind. True 
learning implies more than discipline of talents. It implies a 
culture of the rational and more inaccessible powers of the soul' 
It must affect the judgment, and the powers of imagination and 
feeling, and the moral sense. It would more nearly conform 
iO Sir Philip Sidney's definition : That learning enlarges the 
memory, enlivens conceit, and strengthens the judgment. It 
is not the cultivation of a single faculty, but enlarges the being 
and powers of the whole man. It pre-supposes the great essen- 
tials of humanity, the religious nature of man, as well as the 
faculties of the understanding. There is not a power that it 
does not call into exercise and develope, and yet further, there 
is no growth and development without it* It subordinates all 
faculties and gifts. It is not therefore mere erudition, mere 
acquisition, that we would call learning. It is by study, by the 
use of books, in which are recorded principles, either formally 
expressed, or embodied in the varied forms of art. But the 
end is the perfection of the man. 

No ! It is for no low servile needs, much less for the lower 
ends of pleasure or profit that the true scholar labors. Led by 
purer impulses, he aims for the one the only end that is worthy 
of human effort, that truth which/ elevates by its possession, 
which enlarges the being of the man, and makes him more con- 
scious of what he is and what he may become, which makes 
him truly conscious of himself. The true scholar, whether he 
wanders amid the exuberant growths of [literature, or travels 
along the strait, steep, rough road of pure science, or risks life 
and health among the unhealthy bogs and treacherous quick- 
sands of Philosophy and Metaphysics, has still the same high 



11 

end in view — the lofty summits bathed in perpetual light— where, 
as under some polar sky, he can see the sun go round and 
round in undiminished unclouded splendor, and never set. 

Such a view of learning, as having a spiritual, a religious 
purpose, is verified by the fact, that the great teachers among 
men have always made the investigation of moral and ethical 
questions, the great object of their teaching. Among the 
heathen even, we find this religious aim of thought acknowledged 
more or less consciously. The heaven-descended gnothi seaition 
was accepted as the great end of study — and Plato, '• the 
Attic bird, that in the olive groves of Academe, trilled his 
thick warbled notes the Summer long" — Plato after years 
spent in visiting the most famous resorts of learning, returned 
to Athens to instruct her sons in moral truth, and by a logic 
quickened and guided by exalted ideas in the master's mind, 
to aid them both to discern " the true, the beautiful and the 
good," and also to detect the sophistry and lies of those false 
guides, who would increase the power of evil passions, and of 
the evil heart, by false theories, and obscure the true beauty of 
virtue, by setting up the false splendor of their sophistical and 
inconclusive reasonings. In the middle ages and at more 
recent periods, the revival of letters has been contemporaneous 
with a deeper religious fervor, and, in all times, those learned 
men have been esteemed the greatest, — not perhaps the most 
erudite, but the greatest, — who have carried into all their studies 
such an exalted religious purpose, and have made it the com- 
trolling power in their lives and labors as scholars, as well as in 
the ordinary walks of life, ever keeping in view truth as their 
end. 

It would be wrong to infer that such a controlling, pervading 



12 

feeling, such a sincere and earnest seeking of truth, is at vari- 
ance with anything intrinsically beautiful or really strong and 
excellent, or opposed to any true and legitimate impulse of 
undepraved humanity. ]STo : it could hardly be, that that 
which improves the general health, should be unfavorable to 
the health of any function, that the whole man should be aroused 
to the greatest exertion, and any faculty be lethargic. None 
are so quick to perceive, so apt to appreciate all that is beauti- 
ful in Art, or elegant in Literature, or profound and accurate 
in Science and Philosophy, as those who seek knowledge in its 
highest and purest sources, who are most imbued with the true 
spirit of the genuine scholar. 

I know that in thus representing learning, I am speaking of the 
{deal rather than the actual, of what should be, rather than of 
what is. I do so, because the ideal must always control the 
actual, if there is to be any right acting. There are no schol- 
ars that are entirely actuated by such pure motives and im- 
pulses ; there are none of whom it can be said, that all their 
knowledge has increased wisdom, and in whom all acquisition 
goes to the building up of the symmetrical man ; very few of 
whom it can be said, that all their knowledge tends to edifica- 
tion. And yet, all will admit that it is only as knowledge, (as 
was said of Chief Justice Story,) has descended from the memo- 
ry to the judgment, that it is of real value. All that is truly 
valuable in what is called learning, is really so, only as it be- 
comes in the soul practical wisdom. It is this ideal of excel- 
lence as the reward of labor, that in all the really great, who 
have been benefactors of the race, — this ideal, as an " aliquid 
immensum infinitum que ," that has impelled them to become 
such. 



13 

The depravity and wickedness of man has always led the 
many to turn away from the excellent. Yet what should be the 
great purpose of man as man, is still the means of, an instru- 
ment in the scheme for, his restoration. Our fall and the 
curse of sin did not extend to a degradation below the human, 
and the acts and exercises that become the undegenerate, and 
the spirits of the just made perfect, are still the acts and exer- 
cises that become man even as he is. It is only as we look at 
all human purposes and modes of action in the light of man's 
proper humanity, that we can determine them at all. We are 
otherwise as unsettled in our principles as we are deficient in 
our lives. There is no progress without true knowledge, and 
on the other hand, there is no true knowledge without progress. 

Such views of knowledge are not mere abstractions. Fxcuse 
me, if I have seemed to refine statements too far, and to have 
darkened truth with words. My purpose has only been to 
limit and define it. For it is not a theory but a practical truth, 
that works out into most important and strictly consequential 
results. However dark the root, the flower opens to the day. 
For, while it affects at once all our modes — our whole system 
of instruction, — it gives a dignity and excellency, a deep im- 
portance, to the whole subject of education, and exalts it at 
once to the highest position. It affects our system and our 
modes both positively and negatively, by making some things 
necessary and rejecting others as inexpedient to the end de- 
sired. It affects positively by requiring that the studies shall 
be truly educational, that is drawing out and not cramming in, 
as is too frequently the case. That the whole tenor of them shall 
be especially to make thoughtful men ; men who will seek to 
find the principles that govern and the laws that control ; that 



14 

cannot act from impressions, or be unmoored from all their 
fastenings by excitement, and carried away by an opinion 
framed for temporary convenience. It requires a system that 
shall make men of liberal views, and at the same time of decided 
and established character. It would make our Colleges and 
Schools subservient not merely to the State, to a party or sect, 
but first of all to truth and to God. In our country its influence is 
especially needed. Here where are so many parties, and where 
the contest for party power is terrible in its effects, upon even 
the highest and most sacred interests ; where party rage like 
the Titans of old, seems ready to scale heaven itself; where 
every institution is liable to its depredations, and nothing is so 
sacred that it can hope entire exemption from the pollution of 
its touch ; where the best men are dragged into party measures 
even against their will ; any system or institution will be seized 
upon, even though the last hope of the Church or State, if for 
one instant it is severed from, not protected by the active and 
vigorous life and strength of the principles on which, and for 
which, it w T as established ; if there are not intelligent friends 
who understand its true character, and will exert efficient 
energy in preserving that life and strength healthful and un- 
impaired. To-day in many of our States, this idea seems to 
have left the guardians of the common schools, while a new in- 
terpretation of their purpose is presented and urged by a pow- 
erful sect, sustained by others for party ends, — that schools are 
to educate citizens, and that consequently all that does not fit 
a man for what are commonly considered citizen's duties, to 
pursue the common avocations, and fill his place in a particular 
sphere, is unnecessary and to be rejected. As if such a partial 
education could be given without detriment to the State-^-wlnch 



15 

demands whole men, fully grown, of the full stature of all manli- 
ness and virtue, as her citizens, that she may unfold all the ex- 
cellence and glory of a perfect commonwealth. And the first 
step in furtherance of this view is to banish the Bible and 
prayer : both of which, in the view of wisdom and experience, 
have been deemed essential to a school system. For no book 
is better fitted than the Bible to exert the highest educational 
influence ; and so far from being rejected, should rather be 
more intimately used in the details of an educational system — ■ 
" Since no book contains more profound history, more sublime 
poetry, more accurate and discriminating biography, than the 
Bible:' 

But it is when these ideas of learning are carried out fully 
in instruction, — when applied by the discreet and experienced 
teacher, not only to affect a limited system, adapted to or re- 
strained by external necessities, as is the case with our common 
schools ; but to give life and character to a system, which aims 
at the realization in others of all that true learning can bestow ; 
when applied in the education of the choice spirits, " Who in 
the prime of early youth, wisely have shunned the broad way 
and the green, and labor up the hill of heavenly truth,"- — it is 
then that we should expect to find in the results, an evidence 
of the intrinsic worth of learning. 

The University and College systems are avowedly for the 
accomplishment of this object. They are to advance true learn- 
ing — they acknowledge no other end. Still they do not in any 
case fully meet the requirements of the ideal, which neverthe- 
less pervades them. In this country they are cramped with 
poverty, and in the hurry and rush of men for the spoils of 
wealth and power, they find few who will heed their counsel, and 



16 

follow far enough in the pursuit of knowledge. And in Europe 
the systems, though grand and well nigh perfect in their design, 
have fallen in too many cases into the hands of false friends, or 
false enemies — and been turned like a destructive engine 
against the cause they were designed to aid. But imperfect 
as they have been, their influence has been vast enough to 
justify our judgment of their importance. 

In every age, instruction given by the wise and good has 
been productive of most beneficial results, sometimes staying by 
its warnings even the downward heedless course of a sensual and 
headstrong people, — and gilding with the splendors of philoso- 
phy the rough iron of a tyrannous period, or as its greatest 
blessing, leaving the truth either grafted into the minds of a 
silent few, to " grow there and to bear," or deposited in books 
a most precious legacy to future generations. But in modern 
Europe, for the first time, systems were established having in 
view this religious, this Christian end of learning — that, adopt- 
ing whatever of value was left from more ancient times and 
systems of mere discipline, still kept in view the higher pur- 
poses of knowledge. 

And what is there of value in modern society and civiliza- 
ation, in Church or State that does not owe much of its excel- 
lence to them ? The great principles of civil liberty originated 
in the thoughtful minds of the scholars of Europe. It was in 
those same resorts of learning too, that not only the true prin- 
ciples originated, but there, in contact with the wisdom, experi- 
ence and recorded greatness of the past, men learned to love 
the truth so as to live by it, and when called upon, nobly to die 
for it. The first great martyrs of truth in the middle ages, 
men whose burning kindled a fire that all the blood shed by 



IT 

tyrants has not been able to extinguish — men graduates of 
European Universities. There too the same love of truth orig- 
inated and maintained in spite of persecution, the importance 
of free discussion and tne right and duty of independence in 
thought and opinion. 

Literature, Science, Government, Philosophy and Theology, 
all acknowledge in Institutions of learning their fostering 
mother. And not these departments of study alone — but the 
society itself in which, as in their soil, they grow, owes its char- 
acter and constitution to the practical truths which have thus 
been placed in it, as the suitable elements to support the growth 
of virtue and public civility. And how was this done ? By 
rules published authoritatively ? by written statements or learn- 
ed discussions ? So in part — but mainly by living examples, 
living oracles : hy men exhibiting the results of a noble and 
manly culture. By men, who, trained in the retirement of a 
College, during the period when their character and principles 
were forming, went down into the active scenes and affairs of 
common life, to the Senate and the Bar ; into the pulpit, and 
to the walks and pursuits of science, and to the common sta- 
tions of usefulness, armed with truth and equipped mill princi- 
ples in the intellect and the heart. Men quick to perceive, 
wise to judge, prompt to act, patient and resolute to endure. 
Whoever else may have been distinguished — whatever other 
characters may have acquired in those celebrated institutions 
power for mischief instead of good— still history will confirm 

t h e f ac t the exceptions at least do not disprove the rule,— 

that true men and their influence have far exceeded the evil. 

Who shall measure the influence of such profound and cul- 
tured minds, through a long life vigorously active upon other 
3 



18 

minds ; what fields are not now blooming, or growing golden 
for the harvest, of which the original seed came from some good 
man's hand, it may be, ages since. For any truth, any princi- 
ple once expressed, has an abiding ceaseless power whose con- 
sequences shall extend to the end of time — and beyond it. 

In our country the results of the college system have not 
been different. Indeed our Colleges have been more entirely 
imbued with the idea that has been expressed, than the Uni- 
versities of Europe. The great object of fitting men for prac- 
tical duty has been more definitely avowed. The call for men 
to the work of life has been indeed so great, that it has been 
difficult to restrain the young long enough to prepare them for 
the responsibilities that here more than elsewhere press upon 
active laborers. But where, after all, have there been men in 
whom learning has more completely perfected its design ? 
Where, those in whom there has been such complete harmony 
between acquirements and gifts, between exalted power of mind 
and simplicity of character ; where, men imbued with more real 
practical wisdom, whose real greatness as far exceeds in splendor 
the flashy smartness of mere talents, as does the light of the 
Sun the star that shrinks at its approach ? So universal and all 
prevalent with us is this influence of Institutions of learning, 
that we are hardly aware of its extent and power. But the 
watchful observer from the facts around him, and the philosophic 
thinker from the operation of known laws, would rightly infer 
that all that we most value in the present, and are most proud 
of in the past, and all that furnishes a rational ground of hope 
for the continuance of our blessings, and the future progress o* 
our people — that all this has been, and must be, more than 
to any other instrumentality, due to our American Colleges* 



19 

And Low can it be otherwise, if they are the nurseries of know- 
ledge and wisdom as we have supposed ; — is not wisdom to be 
esteemed pre-eminently the stability of our times, and must 
not such an influence be felt from the hundreds of young men, 
who yearly go from college to the utmost corners of our land ? 
They carry principles and truths, which by contact merely 
would be felt, acknowledged, adopted and applied, and would 
become operative for permanent good. But when enforced 
from the pulpit, sustained by the courts, taught in our schools, 
and disseminated by the pres3, they become the controlling 
principles of society 

In this Institution we humbly hope, that this idea of a true 
and manly culture may be realized. It is a purpose which 
calls for all our energy, a design large enough to employ all 
our philanthropy. Were it merely to teach the sciences and 
formal knowledge — to lead the young and susceptive mind along 
flowery walks to the grander and more sublime aspects of liter- 
ature, poetry and science, its establishment would be of interest 
and importance. But when w r e consider that the design in- 
volves not only the discipline of talents, but the evolution of 
character, — when it is remembered that young men, the choice 
spirits of the land, the hope of the country, are to receive both 
the preparation that shall make them good soldiers in the battle 
f life, and the skill to manage the evolutions, and control the 
movements in the conflict — that to make meat, and not mere 
scholars is our purpose — that this is not with reference to this 
class or the next, but is to be a continued influence when the 
grave shall have received all of us — when we think of the 
place, the time, and the circumstances — that we, here, almost 
within hearing of the roar of the Pacific, in this land so recently 



20 

a wilderness ; that we, the first, not in haste, but with delibera- 
ation, and to meet the exigencies of the country ; not heedless- 
ly, but prayerfully, are publicly organizing a College — wc 
feel that neither energy nor philanthropy nor any human 
power can suffice to accomplish what is undertaken. We feel 
it a privilege as well as a duty to be able to commit this Institu- 
tion, consecrated in its infancy, now, in the first flush and 
vigor of manhood, to that God who has guarded and guided, 
and who will, we hope and pray, yet crown it with his praise. 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




028 343 509 A 



